Bisclavaret
by Rin0rourke
Summary: He sits in ambush in the villages;in hiding places he murders the innocent.His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket.The helpless are crushed,sink down and fall by his might...You will incline your ear...
1. My Rock of Refuge

I probably should have chosen something a little shorter and, you know, finished, to work on, but I liked this one and Rin seemed excited about doing it, so yay us.

This was originally a Halloween piece based off the legend of Beauty and the Beast. Many people don't realize it but it is a wear wolf story, of a very romantic sense. Many happy endings for these stories involve some kind of magical trickery such as the story of a young baron simply needed human cloths to feel like a man again, or when faced with the beast a traveler called out the name of his friend traveling with him for help, the name brought the wolf back and there he was, his friend all along, or mild violence such as the case where a mortal must prick the skull of the wear-beast, drawing three drops of blood. sometimes you merely had to state to the creatures face "you are a wear-wolf" for the person to be revealed. Silver bullets and traps and snares are the favored method from these old stories, as they often hunted anything that went against the norm, but to reach out to the person within the creature requires a deep love for those around you, and a kindness to those in need. Human compassion has been shown to break any curse, heal any mystical affliction, and cure the blighted soul of even the greatest of sins.

So i ask you, who better to face the creatures of darkness than our own darkling himself? Without further adieu I give you Danny Phantom (and cast) in Bisclavaret.

Ordinarily the tale begins with a fathers betrayal, but, like the Disney movie, we'll blunt the edge of it a tad.

**_You have shown your people desperate times; you have given us wine that makes us stager._**

Psalm 60:3

They had been wealthy once.

In a sea battered costal town they lived, in a large house with many servants, a wealthy merchant family with tradings all over the world, as far reaching as India and even the Americas. Yes, they had been wealthy once.

The promises of Louisiana* had tempted even they, who had shrewdly survived the reign of Louise XIV and prospered on the high of the new Bank notes. Yet all that returned on the ships were the same old sailors and cargo from the new world, nothing for them but tales of death and swam and hopelessness. Suddenly their pockets were full of simple colored paper, no backing for the notes, their valuable gold sitting in the Royal treasury while they walked around with nothing, scrambling to salvage what they could to stay out of the debtors prisons, to avoid the offers of indenture, to simply survive.

And Louise was a fond memory of how their family had clawed its was through hell to live in purgatory. What remained of their wealth was invested in shipments of tangible goods, trading, as had always been their business, and off to India they sailed, and were lost. To a storm, to the sea. And they were left with nothing.

Winter was cruel to them, used to the luxury of candles and lanterns they cowered in the lengthening nights in their tiny mountain cabin, rented from some noble land owner they had once done good business with under the promise to watch the roadway for trespassers and the trading caravans. The thick wools and silks and cottons they had once curled beneath were replaced with threadbare blankets of scratchy wool barely keeping the chill from their bodied as the drafts swept through cracks in the wooden walls.

Danny shivered as he tightened the rope ties for his crow-cot and checked his sister's blankets for bugs, tossing the biters in the fire when he found them. His mother ground corn from their stores to make bread while his sister added dried beans to a stew for supper. He should have gone out hunting, he knew this, but his father had forbidden it.

He simply wanted to escape this tiny shack, even if it was into the solitary chill of an unfamiliar forest. Besides, he had often hunted hares with his friends. True it had been with a musket on horseback, with a pack of purebred hounds and on fine Autumn days. He recalled the taste of wine from a flask and the sweetness of a wild apple, how his comrades gloated over their kills. Sometimes they would stop by a stream where a moor family worked the land, and a boy their age would offer them fish.

He wondered if he went to that small farm would the slave boy sit with him on the stream or would he laugh at the plight of the fallen privileged, as his governess had done as she packed her belongings into a carriage, as his once were friends had when he had gone to bid them farewell. As the servant boy he had played with in the manor had done as they had packed what they kept in a cart and headed out of town.

He brushed his cheek in phantom pain as memory of the impact of a rotten fruit thrown by a cottage girl whose affections he had once snubbed struck his mind. Would the moor offer him a fish, in his stained trousers and fraying blouse, his worn boots and his sad retired cavalry horse, saved from the knacker on a whim when he had the chance for whimsy. Perhaps he would ride down to visit tomorrow, and if his welcome was warm maybe the boy would like to hunt, as fishing in a frozen lake did not sound appealing and the fields would not need tending in the winter.

The wooden door creaked open on aged hinges and he turned from his fire gazing to see his father hobble in under the weight of several bundles of wood. Hurrying up he helped with the load.

"Put the kindling in the basket Son, I don't want you carrying anything too heavy yet." His father instructed and Danny felt the sting of the unintended insult. Of course his world weathered father would view his pampered son such a way, but he wished he could prove himself in some way, he was working hard, he truly was, and knew if he was simply given the chance he could do something.

He gripped the twigs and branches tightly as he moved to the woven basket, it was heavily braided with strong bamboo from china and had once been the prize of his mother's embroidery room, now it sat covered in soot and grime, nibbled upon by the rats they shared winter shelter with. He wished for the falcon he had shone so proudly last summer, it would hunt those rats and they would never have to worry about their belonging nor food or their toes and fingers in the night.

Perhaps he could find and raid an owl nest in the spring, if they survived until spring.

"Tomorrow, may I go riding?" he asked, arranging the kindling in the basket in a way he had learned these past months. It was a type of art, he realized, and appreciated the life of his servants for the countless time since they lost their home.

His parents looked at each other across the small space, terrified worry and hopelessness in their faces.

"I don't want you hunting son, we have enough from Vlad to last the winter if we eat conservatively." his father said in answer.

"Not to hunt." maybe not, probably not. "I know a boy, down near the farms, that I would like to visit."

"Oh?" his mother perked at this. "How nice, i thought it strange none of your little friends come to visit." A lie, she knows they shun him, the same as her, and his sister Jasmine, and their father as well.

"Yes, well its far for them." he lies back, "He, though, he lives closer, and often comes up here to a river to fish." a truth, and he feels glad to have it said, their lives were surrounded with these lies now, these pretendings that their friends were simply too busy to reach them, or to visit, or to send a message with the traders as the passed through the mountain. He feels as though truth is rare here, this lie of a life that they don't belong in. He loves these moments of truth, and wants to say them as often as he can. He wonders if his family feels the same.

"Well, if you're careful, and dress warmly, I see no problem." His father smiles through his beard, he didn't used to have one, and the sight of it still unnerves his son, as if it is a mask concealing his face, this man is not his father, this house is not his home, this life is not his life, its all lies, and he wishes that once, just once, the truth would shatter it and let him find the path down this mountain back to what once was. "Wrap the horse as well, we can't afford it to come to harm, you never know when we may get word from the traders."

His family sits in silence again, back to their work, avoiding the lie that keeps them going. The traders would return, all the ships couldn't have been lost, something must have survived. And just one bolt of cloth, one barrel of spices, one crate of goods, and they could survive. In the spring they would invest, in a flock of sheep perhaps. His mother chooses this time to talk of her fine craft and how she'd make such cloths that the farmers would buy all her shirts and jackets.

"Jaz, when we have the thread I'll teach you to sew, I know you hated it in the manor, but with all this time we have now I believe you could learn something, and the things you could make with embroidery, why its just like painting." she sighs wistfully and her foot works the pedals like she was spinning wool instead of grinding away what is left of their trading with America.

Jaz just nods and stirs the beens, she wishes for her folders of paper and bottles of ink, for her expensive books, hand written by all her favorite scholars whose support she gives in the money they once had. The only book that remains in their possession is an old bible, its ink smudged from thumbs tracing lines, searching for comfort .

As his family gives false comfort to each-other with their plans for the future, what they'll have soon, what they'll make for themselves when spring comes, if only they survive the winter, his mother begins a psalm, and he listens quietly, as he does every night. The frustration of Job** bubbles in him as he listens.

"I will tell everyone about your righteousness. All day long I will proclaim your saving power, for I am overwhelmed by how much you have done for me." Her soft voice read it aloud and the bread cooked and the beans softened and his father rested on Danny's and Jaz's cot, he simply stared into the fire, watching the embers and ashes turn shades of red and black and grey, she continued her praises of the Lord and he wished he could throw the damn thing in the hearth. "You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me from the depths of the earth." His sister's face had smoothed and she looked at peace, stirring the pot with the wooden spoon. He focused on the fire and tried to keep his thoughts away from his anger. He didn't need to anger Him on top of everything else.

"You will restore me to even greater Honor," his father interrupted, his words flowed from memory, "and comfort me once again. Then I will praise you with music on the harp, because you are faithful to your promises, O God." They continued on together, the voices fading to the back as the crackle of the fire and the heat of the flame lulled him to sleep. the last line sticking in his memory as he rested his head on his arms on the dirt floor.

"...For everyone who tried to hurt me has been shamed and humiliated."

**_Is it not you, O God, you who have rejected us?_**

****Psalm 60:10

*in the early 1700 John Law created bank notes, acquired the Mississipi Company along with it's monopoly of trade with French Louisiana, then removed France's paper currency from the gold standard and placed it into the MC's shared price standard, causing hyper-inflation. The share price, however, was overestimating the wealth in Louisiana and Law attempted a controlled slowdown which triggered a selling frenzy. The paper curantcy (Bank Notes) became worthless.

This should not be confused with the South Seas Bubble, which occurred in the same year (1715 I think).

** The patience of Job is a tongue in cheek saying that is often misinterpreted, as anyone who read the story knows he was anything but patient.

Rin. Don't you just love her? I'm Christian and I didn't even know these Psalms,(because the Bible is boring, and the psalms are kind of hard to understand) and she went through like five different translations to find the wording she wanted. I kind of like the bible when she talks about it, she reads it like its some great epic story, not all droll and boring like the Father as church does. Also, did you know Jesus tamed dragons? seriously, the chick is awesome.

The footnotes were written by Rin, and are ususally for us Editors so we aren't asking all kinds of questions, but I decided to start keeping them for the benifit of the readers who may not know French folk tales, history, and legend.

There will be a line, or two, from a psalm at the beginning and end of every chapter.


	2. My Fortress, My Deliverer

**_Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy._**

Psalm 86:1

* * *

><p>Danny stirs. He lay on his cot beside his sister, the fire cold and dark and his parents asleep in their loft. Scratching and rustling, the thump of tiny bodies fat on the remains of dinner not yet swept from the floor as whatever vermin infesting their house scrambled to hide.<p>

'Yeah you better run.' He thought, shifting beneath the blankets that do nothing to keep them warm. At least the wind has died, he is grateful for that, and thinks for a moment, as he rearranges himself in an attempt to find sleep again. He wonders what woke him, but considers it the mice, or perhaps the sting of bites he feels welling up over his skin, he slaps at one of the bugs and feels others crawling. Disgusted he flips himself over, brushing his body hastily. There is no fire left to burn them so he crushes them in his hands and tosses their carcasses to the floor.

An impatient banging at the door startles him. Well, that explains his sudden wakefulness, he hears the low roof above him creek and knows a parent will be down soon, but he grabs the wood axe and creeps towards the door. Who knows what kind of Lutins* roamed these strange forests, he was certain he had seen a Matagot** yesterday though his sister called him daft. Opening the door he gazed a the saddled horse waiting outside, pawing at the snow, its breath a fog in the air. It lifted its head to gaze at him with tired eyes. He gripped the axe harder and kept an ear tuned to the heavy footsteps of his father down the ladder behind him.

"Who is it at this hour?" Jack asked and he turned to answer him when a looming shadow fell across him and, with a shout, he fell back, the axe thumped in the earthen floor.

"Whoa there boy." Greeted the intruder and Danny stared up into the grin of a large weathered looking man.

"Skulker, what brings you here at this most unholy of hours?" His father leaned over his sprawled form to clap their guest on the bicep. "Is Vlad well?" he asked of their landowner.

"When I left, as well as any man can be. He sent me with news Fenton, and its news you'll enjoy." He lifted Danny up with a strong, steady grip and patted the dust off his sleeping gown. "Sorry about the scare boy, thought I was Le Cheval there, didn't you?"

Danny didn't quite embarrass himself with the nod when his father cut in. "Nonsense, Danny's a practical boy, his sister perhaps, she's always reading those books. Always goes on about Charlemange, probably would have fancied herself visited by Morgan le Fay."***

"Huh, what?" the bundle of blankets shifted and his sister's wild red hair peaked out.

"Nothing Jaz, go back to sleep." Danny threw one of the blankets over the rod above the cot as a curtain shielding her from view.

"Danny, go un-tack Skulker's horse before it freezes out there." His father told him as he started to build a fire again.

"Thats alright, I have a few others to visit the next few days, I'll stay at an inn for an hour or two come sun up, but I have a long road ahead, and it's all in the snow." He moved into the room as the fire fed on the kindling and sat at the same stool Danny's mother had a few hours before. "But this is nice, very nice. I think my eyes are frozen." Skulker was a brave man, one had to be in this age of darkness where the light of the fire did little to keep the creatures of night at bay. Skulker, as they called the man, was a guard of the Masters household who spent most of his time delivering messages or escorting guests safely through the woods, at night. "Vlad sent me to tell you one of the ships came into port."

"What?" Jack said loudly, and Danny hushed him. Madie, Danny's mother, stepped down from the ladder in a conservative gown. She had probably spent the time between the door answering and now to dress appropriately for guests.

"Yes, it came in several hours ago, Vlad sent me to deliver the news to everyone who has cargo aboard. The crew's pay will take a large chunk out of the goods, but you have bolts of silk and spices and that furniture you ordered, Madeline, from that crafter. I know you'll probably have to sell them, but its such a beautiful set that you simply must see them first. Sit in that fine chair you wanted so much, just once."

His mother looked close to tears, touched by the words and relieved by the news. "This is so wonderful, God truly delivers doesn't He?"

"I've never seen Him do otherwise." And they embraced. "I must get going, sorry to wake you."

"Think nothing of it, this is news worth waking for, thank you my friend, truly." and Jack saw him out while Danny added wood to the fire. "I'll tack the old horse, head down there in the morning, Thank you." and they clasped eachother in hugs and bid farewell. Danny stared into the fire, a sense or unease settling over him. Was this not what his family was waiting for, God's deliverance? He cannot help but fear that this is more a sign of foreboding. He wished his father not to leave at sunrise, but didn't voice his sudden apprehension

He set about making breakfast instead while his father parents went back to bed for the few hours of the night that remained. He doesn't know how badly he'd wish he'd said something, in a few days, doesn't know how his life would change.

So when light comes and he sees his father off with the rest of his family he crushes it down, not knowing that once his father rounds that curve and disappears into the trees he looses more than a relaxing day tramping through the forest with some Negro he isn't sure would even like to be his friend, if he doesn't call out he will soon find himself lost. Yet he stands there, watching, long after his mother has gone inside and his sister gathers snow to melt for water. He watches the trees around him, wondering what could be bothering him, but nothing clues him in. He kicks at the snow, grabs his musket and knife from the house, and heads down to the river, maybe if he finds ice thin enough he could fish, he is more concerned with escaping this feeling then food however.

**_Oh Lord, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence, let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry._**

Psalm 88:1-2

* * *

><p>Its important to remember that La Bete Gevaudan did not make her appearance until June 1st, 1764, over fifty years after this story takes place. However this is still a superstitious time, here are some lesser known French creatures.<p>

* A Lutin is a type of Fae, one of it's shapes is a lone horse saddled and ready to ride called Le Cheval Bayard.

** A Matagot is a mostly evil spirit that appears in the form of an animal.

*** Do I even need to tell you about her? She's mythical creature, had a certain son with Julius Caesar named Oberon, you know, king of the Fairies in the legends of Charlemange?

And Rin completely yet another chapter of heavily Christian French stuff. I have no idea where its going, I just edit and post. Rin has a new laptop, but It's shift key is broken so nothing is being capitolized, and those special characters you get with it are gone too. never know how important a key is until its gone and suddenly I have a million more things to do. I'm Glad Kedo does the fact checking, as most of this shit comes straight from Rin's head and whatever books she has lying around. I don't think she's ever made a huge historical error, but Kedo often finds small ones, not that i remember those off the top of MY head.

Next chapter Dash, the wearbeast version anyway, meets up with Jack and things get started.


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